In a sense, I was born an agnostic atheist. Baptized Catholic as my mother was Irish and driven by primitive superstitions and cultural traditions, yet the family did not attend church. Our nuclear clan was the black sheep of the local Doyle tribe because my mother married a Portuguese. In my youth, Christianity was endemic in the middle of Massachusetts; and yet none of my contemporaries offered any validation. It was the done thing, one was expected to "be Christian," whether or not one went to church or even cracked a Bible.

It was only through my grandfather's conversion, late in life, to Evangelical Protestantism, that I became aware of the Christ; in fact I don't even remember having access to a Bible before said event. As he was virtually the sole male influence in my childhood, my early adventures in Christianity were more of a male bonding ritual than a standard indoctrination. He was one of the fortunate ones; he believed, but he also did not feel the need to coerce. I went along to church when the mood struck; when it did not, in no wise was I disparaged. He truly felt that the blessing of the Christ would come when it did, or not at all. One of those who simply felt the love and had no room for hate. I don't remember a single instance of "hellfire" being mentioned... but he was into the 700 Club. He might have cursed the nameless heathens along with Jerry Falwell on the TV.

The defining moment of my young religious life came in the summer following my sophomore year in high school. There was this singular bash; as if the whole class was invited to a ritual of young adulthood. My quinceanera, as it were. It was there that my "destiny" was decided; to become a "druggie" of the "jocks vs druggies" dichotomy prevalent at the time. Even as my closest friends were jocks, even as I preferred the jock's alcohol to the druggie's marijuana; for what was being decided was not party favors, but party affiliation. The jocks began conforming to the standards and mores of the citizenry, while the druggies held themselves aloof from such early alliances.

Those last two years of high school; oh yeah, I got high, but more importantly I was part of a crew that questioned everything. And there was no more interesting question than God. In those days, that was mostly restricted to "God, our heavenly father; and Jesus, his beloved son." The context was mostly pre-technological tribal nomads; and how does this possibly have anything to do with the twentieth century? We were led to believe that "Christian" was part of being "American;" we didn't go to church nor read the Bible, we simply assumed that it was a carry-over of primitive ethical standard useful for forming a moral base. Yeah, we didn't know anything.

What I didn't know, was why. I long figured I was "insane" in the sense of being whack-crazy, different from the herd. After a stint in the Air Force led to an entry-level separation, a complete psychological work-up was done in out processing; after which I waited for the paperwork to clear in CQ housing. I'm not likely to forget the doctor's appraisal of my mental health: We used to have the ability to authorize incarceration in the asylum - that's where you'd be going - now we just kick you loose. My mother always insisted on my sanity; I know now it was in an effort to protect her image of the family, the sad but true is that all I ever was to the family was this dark potential and never a person. Thus was my life; a dark potential, never a person.

That potential was fulfilled with my arrival at ADC-Yuma. My crime was being without direction; I drove a truck as I was the most functional, the truck broke. An accident, but I was legally intoxicated; any kind of ambition, or money, and it would have been water under the bridge. I had neither, I served three and a half years; I wasn't doing anything else.

One thing I always could do, however, is draw. In county jail, there's plenty of time to do absolutely nothing; if one has any kind of hobby, it is going to manifest. Thus I started doing sketches for my fellow jailbirds; mostly in exchange for coffee. One time, this con gave me a stack of colored pencils; as the despair of my situation was starting to wane due to familiarity; I thought back to what I enjoyed. Drawing women from magazines. What should have been a non-event, choosing who to draw; is now the duality of my creation. In my left hand, Neve Campbell, of Scream and Wild Things fame; in my right, A Perfect Murder's willowy Gwyneth Paltrow. I still cannot credit the determinism that led to drawing the one that did not fit my preferences; there may be no crediting the determinism that followed immediately after with a descent into love and madness.

Duality of creation, ever and again; the here and the now reflecting the birth of the naive philosopher: Gwyneth Paltrow is God.

Because I am nothing. Because I love the woman, not the image, not the glamour nor the fame; because I have operated in the shadow of terror that what I said and thought about her would become known to her. Because I despair of life that mine would cause her the least embarrassment. That I die every time I lay down to sleep, without any concern for the morrow; and here I am, a nobody. Writing words of the girl who must not know of my dark potential, that the rational atheist may ponder as the work of the truly insane.

Then think of this as nothing more than poetry, a sonnet of love in the wording of a life that has found his why; that for a moment I sit here knowing of impossible things. I know why Gwyneth Paltrow is God, I know how she became God; I know how love and madness fueled a singular desire of an impossible dream to the threshold of vindication. That rather than embarrassment, these words would make her smile; yet how could she, or anyone know what these words mean?

That I am the Unwording. Not I, a person of no importance; but I, the conceptual framework of Atheist. Knowing the certainty of the Word of God; is God. That God has been written into Mankind by the Word. That when a society teaches a child to read and write; that is the beginning of human life. A human being is not a naturally evolved primate, it is a creation of the will of civilization.

In the beginning, the Word was God; the Word was with God, and ever since, Man has not been without Word. Rather than oral tradition of elders physically representing moral certainty within the tribe; the written tradition has become one of Law, Eternal. Philosophy has continuously failed to define the truth; thus philosophy itself was forced to evolve. A duality in creation. Natural Philosophy, which became science; the art of logical consistency, which became mathematics, leaving the why to linger solely in theology and metaphysics.

Until a nobody fell for a girl who was a somebody. Until technology made information plentiful and ubiquitous. Until you deny the God of Word; and accept that You are the God of I. You, Gwyneth; that I love more than life, You that reads the words of one human to another. And realize that we can love, and hope, and dream; and no God need apply.